Chinese Genetics Company Completes Successful IPO

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BGI Genomics’ Initial Public Offering raises approximately $81 million

Chinese genetics company BGI Genomics completed a successful initial public offering (IPO), raising approximately $81 million through the sale of 40.1 million shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s ChiNext board.

In 2016, BGI Genomics had revenues of $251 million and a net income of $51.7 million, most attributed to sales of reproductive health-related genetic testing services. The company had initially filed an IPO prospectus with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) in December 2015. It updated its prospectus in March 2017 and received approval in May.

The value of the company’s shares rose on the first day of trading, reaching the 44% limit for a first-day increase over the IPO price and resulting in an increase in BGI’s valuation from $802 million to $1.15 billion.

BGI Genomics is based in Shenzhen, China and has a presence in most major Chinese cities. It also has locations in over 100 countries worldwide and has relationships with over 3000 medical institutions and 300 hospitals. The company provides commercial next-generation sequencing services and a broad portfolio of genetic tests for medical institutions, research institutions, and other public and private partners—with emphases on prenatal screening, hereditary cancer screening, testing for rare diseases, and aiding precision medicine research. Specific offerings, according to the company website, include whole human genome resequencing; transcriptome sequencing; plant, animal, and microbe de novo sequencing, RNA quantification, drug discovery; and metagenomics.

BGI Genomics also runs the China National GeneBank in Shenzhen, a repository for genetic information from humans, animals, plants and microorganisms. The company opened the gene bank in 2016 with support from the Chinese government. In fact, biotechnology is identified in China’s 13th Five-Year Plan as one of seven "strategic industries" targeted for growth.

Company Founder and President, Wang Jian, has promised not to sell any of his holdings in the company for the next five years and indicated that he wished to remain invested over the long term with the goal of reducing gene-related disabilities in China. The company’s vision is “Trans-omics for a better life.”

“In the genomics field, we aim to dominate the market, creating a bright future for all by bringing both social and economic benefits,” said Jian. “Benefitting from our innovations in scientific research, the industry will become more active; by serving people's lives as the starting point, the industry will also become more competitive and scalable.”

Added Yin Ye, CEO of BGI Genomics: “The capital raised will allow us to invest in the development of new services, top talent, and lab infrastructure to benefit our global customers and to support our continued growth and innovation.”

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Dr. Challener is an established industry editor and technical writing expert in the areas of chemistry and pharmaceuticals. She writes for various corporations and associations, as well as marketing agencies and research organizations, including That’s Nice and Nice Insight.